7/04/2011

Excessive Force (1993)

Terry McCain (Griffith) is a Chicago cop who is pretty much on the edge.
A member of the Tactical Narcotics Unit, he’s obsessed with taking down
the slick mobster drug dealer Sal DiMarco, who, like John Gotti,
seems to be made of “Teflon” and always manages to avoid jail time.
During a shootout with the DiMarco mob, three million dollars in a
suitcase goes missing. Naturally, DiMarco wants it back, and he assumes
McCain and his team are behind the missing loot. So now the mobsters are
after the cops, and McCain and his girlfriend (Lewis) must go on the
run. Luckily Police Chief Devlin (Henriksen) has given McCain a wide
berth to go off on his own (not necessarily “rogue”) and
catch/punch/kick/kill the baddies. After some mild twists and turns in
the plot, we see who is the true dispenser of EXCESSIVE FORCE.

The
good news is, this is a movie
that lives up to its title. There’s some hilariously, unnecessarily
brutal violence, as if the writer (T.I.G. himself, interestingly enough)
felt he HAD to live up to the title. Like he thought, “well, I already
spent all day coming up with this title, better make sure the movie has
an excessive amount of force”. Well played, Mr. Ian Griffith. Well
played.

The real reason to watch this movie isn't Thomas Ian Griffith's constant roundhouse and jump kicks, but the killer cast! For starters, what is James Earl Jones doing here? This might make an action movie first: a Shakespearean actor on hand to play Jazz with Thomas Ian Griffith! Terry McCain is a pretty in-the-pocket Jazz pianist, just so you know. (McCain also has an earring, so you know he’s cool, long, greasy hair , resembles Christian TV evangelist Joel Osteen and might be a member of the Trenchcoat Mafia. Research is still being done).

Then we have Lance Henriksen,
doing his best as Devlin, Tony Todd as Frankie, again, struggling
against some potential mediocrity and coming out quite well, the awesome Burt Young doing what he does best - being Burt Young. The movie could have used more Burt. The presence of Charlotte Lewis
as the model Anna Gilmour was appreciated. And of course all the
lesser-known names in the cast performed admirably as well.
Additionally, the Martial Arts Technical Advisor on the film was Benny
“The Jet” Urquidez. Sadly he doesn’t appear on screen. So you have a
much better than average cast for this sort of thing, which is nice, and
they help to sell the more inane aspects of the plot without you even
realizing it, because that’s what good actors do. And, yes, this movie
is riddled with cliches, but for the most part they are the FUN cliches
you want (You mean Terry McCain‘s use of excessive force is always
getting him in trouble? No way!). Amazingly enough, this movie went to
the theater! It never would today. Maybe the cast is part of the reason
why.

But the movie is enjoyable, if not groundbreaking, and,
yes, much of the brutality is fairly unwarranted, but this is EXCESSIVE
FORCE people! While not nearly as violent as, say, Wardogs (1986), perhaps
Griffith felt he went too far and didn’t want to be pigeonholed, so the
follow-up, Ulterior Motives (1993),
is less impactful. ‘Motives does not consistently and strongly follow
up Excessive Force properly and a lot of steam was taken out of the
T.I.G. train. That might explain why he isn’t really a household name,
even among action movie fans.

23 comments:

I haven't watched much from T.I.G. but it's odd that you covered this because I watched the trailer over the weekend while searching for films to add to the queue. One of the most important (but underrated) elements of the action b-movie is the quality of the supporting cast and it seems like it's a huge boon here. Good review, I'll have to track this one down.

Oh heck yeah I remember this one. I think this is the first thing I saw T.I.G. in after Karate Kid III. While I didn't like that film, I thought he had a fantastic presence in it and wanted to see more of him.

I've got to chime in on the TIG love. His performance as Terry Silver in Karate Kid 3 is one of my all-time faves. You've got to love any guy who tells his secretary, "Hold all my calls, for the next week my business is strictly revenge!"

This looks more like a product of 1988 than 1993 in terms of atmosphere and feel. Regardless this is a true classic and I'm ashamed it took me this long to see it. 1993 was a great year, with fare like this, Extreme Justice and Martial Outlaw, but this might take the cake. I watched this in disbelief, the way one might watch Deadly Prey or American Commandos. The level of violence and the harsh language had me shaking my head in amazement and satisfaction. The familiar Chicago location gave it a feel of Code of Silence or Above the Law and the whole thing is hard hitting, brutal and uncompromising, or whatever stale adjective you can throw at it. I really can't get enough of this stuff. I could overdose on it. Thank god for You Tube so I can do that.